Rudy's Half-Pregnant Iowa Strategy
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Last week Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register looked at Rudy Giuliani's ongoing struggle over what to do about the Ames straw poll. Mike Glover of the Associated Press has more this morning:
Some Iowa Republicans are questioning whether presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani intends to largely skip the state's leadoff caucuses.
A sluggish start to campaign organizing and indecision about whether to compete in a high-profile straw poll in August has prompted speculation that Giuliani will pay only cursory attention to Iowa and instead focus on other early election states where his high name recognition would pay off. [snip]
"The best organizations have to be McCain and Romney," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, the state's top Republican elected official. "I don't think Giuliani is very far along on organizing."
I'm not usually very big on conventional wisdom, but I think it applies in this instance, and the CW is this that you simply cannot be competitive in the caucuses in January without participating in the Ames straw poll in August.
If Rudy is going to skip Iowa altogether - like McCain did in 2000 - that's would be one thing. But Rudy's camp has repeatedly said they're 100% committed to winning Iowa, so history and logic would dictate that they play in Ames.
Bob Haus, a Republican consultant in Iowa quoted in the AP story, makes a good point about how this ongoing debate affects the Giuliani brand, saying, " "from a man basing his candidacy on decisiveness and leadership, waffling on the straw poll is a real question."
Of course, the alternative is that Rudy never had any intention of playing in Iowa at all and that the whole thing, including the staff of seven and the trips, is one elaborate, expensive head fake. This isn't necessarily good for the Giuliani brand either, since it means his campaign has been flat out lying to the press and the folks in Iowa for months on end.
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